You thought the leaden winter Would bring you down forever But you rode upon a steamer To the violence of the sun
And the colors of the sea Blind your eyes with trembling mermaids And you touch the distant beaches With tales of brave Ulysses
— Eric Clapton/ Martin Sharp, Tales of Brave Ulysses
Today, I thought I’d share the new small piece above, The Voyager, which is headed down to the Principle Gallery for their annual show of small works for the holiday season. These small boat pieces are among my favorites to paint and this particular painting fits in with that trend. There’s something in the simplicity of the compositions that makes it even more fulfilling when emotion is evoked from just a few simple forms and colors.
Like a visual haiku.
For this week’s Sunday morning music, I sought something that would pair up with this piece and decided that we would go back in time a bit, back to 1967. I thought we’d listen to some Cream this morning, from their classic Disraeli Gears album. As some of you may know, Cream was the first supergroup with members– Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker— all coming together from other highly successful bands. With their strong personalities, they only lasted a short time but produced some great and lasting music, including today’s song, Tales of Brave Ulysses.
Here’s a little trivia about this song: This was earliest use of the wah-wah pedal by Clapton and the song was a collaboration between Clapton and an artist neighbor who lived in the the same building, Martin Sharp. Sharp heard that Clapton was a musician ( he wasn’t yet a legend at that point) and told him that he had written a poem that he thought might make a good song. Fortuitously, Clapton had been working on some music that was based on a current hit song that was among his favorites. The song was, surprisingly enough, Summer in the Cityfrom the Loving Spoonful.
I had to go back and listen to see if I could see the influence. It doesn’t jump out at you but it’s there, after all.
Anyway, this song became the B-side to Cream’s Strange Brew and has become a classic bit of rock history. And today it’s floating along with the The Voyager at the top. I threw in their Sunshine of Your Love from the same album mainly because it’s a favorite of mine. But it could fit this panting as well. For that matter, Strange Brewmight also fit. You be the judge.
I was just going to post a song as I do every Sunday and be done with it this morning. Then I came across this post on Twitter from a longtime RN working in a small Plains community that both broke my heart and angered me. Her name is Jodi Doering and she is from Woonsocket, South Dakota, a state which saw an almost 70% Covid-19 positivity rate this past week. This is what she wrote last night:
I have a night off from the hospital. As I’m on my couch with my dog I can’t help but think of the Covid patients the last few days. The ones that stick out are those who still don’t believe the virus is real. The ones who scream at you for a magic medicine and that Joe Biden is going to ruin the USA.
All while gasping for breath on 100% Vapotherm.
They tell you there must be another reason they are sick. They call you names and ask why you have to wear all that “stuff” because they don’t have Covid because it’s not real.
Yes. This really happens. And I can’t stop thinking about it.
These people really think this isn’t going to happen to them. And then they stop yelling at you when they get intubated. It’s like a fucking horror movie that never ends. There’s no credits that roll.
You just go back and do it all over again. Which is what I will do for the next three nights. But tonight. It’s me and Cliff and Oreo ice cream. And how ironic I have on my “home” Hoodie.
The South Dakota I love seems far away right now.
It made me sad because I so appreciate the work done by nurses and aides in the healthcare system. It is difficult, crucial, and dangerous work that often comes without thanks or any acknowledgement of appreciation. They are under fire, putting their own lives at risk every day while helping others, from this pandemic and their task is only going to get more difficult in the coming weeks as the cases pile up. These huge numbers we are seeing across the nation will be followed a few weeks later with equal jumps in deaths and hospitalizations. The fact that these folks in healthcare are facing such dire prospects just breaks my heart. I have read and seen numerous such testaments of nurses crying as they suit up with their PPE to head into work. The emotional toll being paid by these people is yet to be seen.
But it also made me angry because of the sheer selfishness and stupidity of those people who refuse to believe that this pandemic is real and that they have any obligation to take any measures at all to protect themselves and others. They are part of a large segment of our population that has chosen to reject any objective reality that doesn’t suit their own desires or beliefs.
This is not an organic thing that just happened. It was originally fostered as a political tool that preyed on low information voters, bombarding them with falsehoods, misinformation and disinformation. It was so effective that they could create complete fields of belief and disbelief in the people that were targeted. But once this wave of selfish stupidity is unleashed, it becomes unmanageable and irreversible.
Kind of like putting the toothpaste back into the toothpaste tube.
My anger stems from the utter irresponsibility of those who sought to enable and profit from this behavior. It also extends to the danger that this irresponsibility has wrought. It has created dangers for us in so many ways. It imperils our health, both physically and mentally. It imperils the validity and credibility of our electoral system.
Jodi Doering, like so many other healthcare workers sharing similar experiences, is a real person who is shouldering a great burden. Not a bot spreading disinformation. The pandemic is a real and deadly threat that we cannot pretend doesn’t exist. Nor can they ignore the very real results of our election. You cannot simply wish away these things away. If that is inconvenient to you or upsets you, that is simply too bad right now.
This selfish stupidity must come to an end. I don’t know how and that makes me crazy because of the fear and anxiety it creates in me because I know this group can be made to believe anything and accept any form of behavior.
That has been amply demonstrated.
There’s way too much toothpaste out of the tube now.
Okay, I have vented. I wish I had more answers than concerns for you.
Let’s hear a song. I am going with a song from AC/DC. Well, a version of an AC/DC song. It’s Thunderstruck, one of the biggest hits from the Aussie rockers. But his version is from Steve’n Seagulls, a Finnish– yeah, from Finland!– bluegrass group that has made a name online for themselves with their quirky videos set in a rural Finnish setting of their covers of hard rock classics. For example, this video has over 112 million views so maybe you’re already aware of it. But it’s a great, energetic way to kick off this Sunday, especially given what I wrote above.
If you can cure selfishness and stupidity, please do. For the rest of you, have the best Sunday you can muster.
The Dark of Night is a temporary condition. It always departs. The Darkness remains only if we refuse to open our eyes. Open your eyes. Look for the Light. And if there is no Light, Become the Light.
I often don’t show some of the commissioned work that I do. I don’t really know why but that’s just the way it usually works out.
But I thought the two paintings above that I recently completed for a couple in Arizona deserved to be shared. I really enjoyed working on these paired pieces, titled Journey of Light, at a time when I needed some joy. It seems like carving light out of the blackness of the treated canvas was just the symbolic gesture I personally needed to restore my faith in things I know to be true.
Sometimes simply doing the work has that way of reinforcing those beliefs as well as the confidence I require to continue.
And the fact that they went beyond my expectations in doing so makes me appreciate them even more. So, maybe I am being a bit too proud in showing them, but I thought they needed to be seen. Plus, they paired well with some words that I wrote back in late 2016 that I also felt deserved to be shared.
“The word was born in the blood, grew in the dark body, beating, and took flight through the lips and the mouth. Farther away and nearer still, still it came from dead fathers and from wondering races, from lands which had turned to stone, lands weary of their poor tribes, for when grief took to the roads the people set out and arrived and married new land and water to grow their words again. And so this is the inheritance; this is the wavelength which connects us with dead men and the dawning of new beings not yet come to light.”
― Pablo Neruda
Found myself awake early this morning. So many things racing through my head that it was hard to focus on trying to sleep. Big things and little things- a gnawing worry for this country and tiny nagging reminders of things that need to be done soon. All things that couldn’t be resolved at 2 AM in the woods where I live.
Then it struck me that it was around this time of the morning that my mom died 25 years ago on this very date.
Geez, 25 years come and gone. And there I was, in bed thinking of her death.
I tried to dredge up memories of her, hoping that it would drown out the other things in the background of my mind, all screaming for attention or at least equal air time. Some memories came easily. Those are the ingrained ones that have become part of the synapses.
But I tried to dig deeper and there were only shadows of memories. Not real recollection. Maybe not even real. I don’t know for sure and most likely never will.
25 years has a way of changing things in your mind.
So, I tried focusing on the traits that I may have inherited from her, some good and some bad. Some neither. They just are what they are.
Some made me laugh. Some made me cry.
Laughter and tears. Quite the inheritance.
There are certainly worse things in this world.
It made me think in bed of the painting above that I recently took out to the West End Gallery. Called From Whence I Came, it’s part of my Archaeology series from back in 2008. I think this piece was only shown once in a gallery before it came back to me. For some unknown reason, it found its way to the back of a closet, where it has been residing for the past 12 years. I pulled it out a few weeks back and it was like seeing it for the first time again.
It made me think of all the choices and serendipity that it took for me to arrive at this place in the world. It’s the same for all of us. We’re all products of the decisions and events that took place throughout the history of man on this planet. One person succumbing to a virus instead of surviving it a thousand years ago and our whole history as a person would be different.
We’re all the spearpoints, the leading edges, the very top of the pyramids of all that came before us. We were brought to this point by the bones and blood of thousands of lives before us.
All their strength. All their vulnerability.
I don’t know where I want this to go. Just thinking out loud, I guess, between the laughter and the tears.
“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Windy Poplars
November slid in under a blue moon this year with clocks being reset to give us a redo of that first hour or so of the new month. Perhaps to let us get adjusted to the change the month brings.
No comment this morning on the potential change that seems headed towards us, in one way or the other. Just taking in the stillness and the darkness of the first morning of November in the year 2020. It feels like the clocks being set back an hour are more of a timeout this year, a pause amidst the chaos that seems omnipresent lately.
The quiet feels good.
Here’s a piece, November, from composer Max Richter performed brilliantly by violinist Mari Samuelsen. It fits the morning.
I was tempted this morning to comment on the horror show taking place in the people’s white house. Every day reveals even more new lows. It’s like an unending fountain of plain badness. So it’s understandable that I might want to say a few words about yesterday’s revelations that began with the discovery that government lawyers admit that they can not locate the parents of 545 migrant children separated from their families at the border, effectively making them orphans. Or that I might want to discuss the uncovering of a bank account in a Chinese bank that was not disclosed on his public financial forms, one that saw $15+ millions flow through it in 2017. Or the fact that he paid tremendously more in taxes to China over the last few years than he did in America while his daughter raked in multiple Chinese trademarks that were fast-tracked in the same year.
I was also tempted by his backhanded insult to the people of Erie, PA last night, when he said at a rally there that he wouldn’t have come or even have to be there if it weren’t for the pandemic. I have been fortunate to know the people of Erie for over twenty five years and know the great pride they take in their hometown so I could easily riff on the absolute hurt in those words.
But I can’t this morning. The awfulness that is currently in place is all too self-evident and becomes even more apparent with each new day.
Hell, with each new hour.
So, today I just want to share a beautiful couple of paragraphs from an essay by the great poet/essayist/environmentalist Wendell Berry. I was looking for something to go along with the painting at the top and as soon as I came across his essay I knew it was a perfect fit for this piece and what I see in it.
The painting is Solitude and Reverence, a 24″ by 36″ painting that was painted in 2015. It’s one of those pieces that have a sense of completeness and fulfilled purpose that often make then standout for me. I know this has been a favorite since I put my brush down after finishing it. For me, the message is that this world, this life, is a gift and we have stopped treating it as such. We show little appreciation for the bounty that this planet has gifted us while allowing us to spend our short time upon it.
We treat it like we were spoiled children with no awareness of the advantages and good fortune bestowed upon us. We only feel entitlement.
Gosh, sounds like I am getting around to criticizing the president*** again, doesn’t it?
Well. maybe that’s why I am so drawn to this piece this morning. It is the antithesis to the ugly attitude that has swept across the nation in recent years, the same that elevated him* to office.
It is peace. It is cooperation. It is shared sacrifice. It is humble. It is reverent.
It is understanding.
It is all I ask of my place in this world.
Is that too much to ask?
Here’s a bit from the Wendell Berry essay. Have a good day.
“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. And this has been based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what was good even for us. We have fulfilled the danger of this by making our personal pride and greed the standard of our behavior toward the world – to the incalculable disadvantage of the world and every living thing in it. And now, perhaps very close to too late, our great error has become clear. It is not only our own creativity – our own capacity for life – that is stifled by our arrogant assumption; the creation itself is stifled.
We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and to learn what is good for it. We must learn to cooperate in its processes, and to yield to its limits. But even more important, we must learn to acknowledge that the creation is full of mystery; we will never entirely understand it. We must abandon arrogance and stand in awe. We must recover the sense of the majesty of creation, and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For I do not doubt that it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it. ”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
“Nothing is more obscene than inertia. More blasphemous than the bloodiest oath is paralysis.”
― Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
The painting at the top hangs in my studio and has been a favorite of mine since it was painted five years back. Every day, I find myself often looking over at it. There’s something in it that satisfies or completes something in me. It’s 24″ by 24″, so it’s not a small piece, but I think it’s not large enough to fully transmit what is has to offer. I often wonder how it would feel as a much larger painting, say 6′ by 6′ or even larger.
These thoughts went through my head this morning before 6 AM as I found myself, coffee in hand, turning to gaze at this piece. I realized then that I couldn’t remember the title of this painting that I look at with intention each and every day. I don’t think of it in terms of its title given to it years ago.
Now, it just is. It exists free of words for me. It is defined by the moment and the circumstance in which I am seeing it.
But I had to get up this morning and go over to it and peek at the back of the painting to see its given name: October Sky.
How fitting, I thought. It’s what I might have called it this morning. That mood that produced it back in 2015 was here in 2020, as odd as it is to think that anything could be similar in any way in this most unusual year.
I went back to my desk and continued to stare at October Sky, thinking that I should be working on a larger version, if only for myself. I could start it today.
But I probably won’t.
I’ve been ensnared in a state of inertia for a while. Been hard to get started and even harder to finish things. I have personal projects around the studio and home to still finish, commissions to work on, new work to begin and a plethora of other things in the hopper. But getting up a head of steam to simply take that first step seems so difficult right now. It feels like paralysis of some sort, one that paralyzes the mind and not the muscles.
I can’t fully pinpoint the cause behind this though there are certainly a lot of possible contributing factors. Just opening your eyes these days is an existential threat to one’s peace of mind. I don’t even think I need to find the cause.
I just need to take that first step forward and I know from past experience that the dullness of mind and body will quickly fade. It’s just getting to the point of taking that step. It’s like I am waiting for something to happen right now and am afraid to be distracted even if that distraction is my own wellbeing.
Now, that sounds more ominous than it is, I am sure. I know I will soon be past this and the work will be flowing, that the synapses will be snapping and shooting off like fireworks. In fact, I think just writing this indicates that I am nearing the end of this malaise, this paralysis of the soul.
I am signing off now. I want to look again at October Sky. Maybe today’s the day I start a larger version. Or just take a first step toward something, anything else. I think there’s something pretty damn good in there just waiting to come out so maybe it’s time to get moving.
Sounds like a plan. Let’s get to the day and make it count.
Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.
—Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina
How long can you stand on a tower of lies?
How long can you endure on a tower built with lies for posts and boasts for beams ?
How long before you see the folly in reinforcing one lie with another?
How long before the foundations come apart and fail?
How long before truth comes as gravity to pull this tower down?
How long can we tolerate you standing brazenly atop your tower of lies?
How long until the inevitable collapse comes?
How long until we begin to tally the casualties from the fall?
How long before we begin to build a straighter and stronger tower?
How long can you stand on this tower of lies?
The post above ran back in February of 2017. That seems like an eternity ago now. It asks how long you can stand on a tower of lies.
We may be coming to an answer, at last. The past 3 1/2 years has seen the most remarkable amount of lying and deceit ever to spew from an administration. It is without equal in our history.
Not even close.
The whole administration is a tower built from lies, deflections, spittle, tape and hairspray. It is as weak as the fool atop it.
And now the “Good Germans” who continue to shore up the foundations of this rickety horror show now make no pretense of honesty, openly and shamelessly lying for all the world to see. Their words, their ethics, their moral compasses are worthless trinkets now.
It is obvious they will and plan to do absolutely anything needed to maintain power. There are a number of scenarios floating out there that outline sheer power plays right out of the fascist/authoritarian playbook that might be in play soon. As hard as it is to imagine these things ever coming to be in this land, we have to at least look at them, be aware of them.
I know that four years ago, in September of 2016, I worried that the scenario we’re experiencing might be a possibility with the election of the orange creature. But I felt that my imagination was just running wild and that the institutions, our Constitution, the balance of power would surely be strong enough to hold back the onslaught.
So now, I hope for the best outcome but pledge to be prepared for the worst.
Be aware and prepare.
Here’s another song from people who were in such a situation. It’s Bella Ciao, a resistance song from the Italian partisans, the anti-fascists who fought the underground battle against Mussolini and Hitler during World War II.
Bella Ciao was originally a rallying song for the women who labored in the rice paddies of northern Italy in the 19th century. Their jobs were backbreaking and they were treated poorly which resulted in strikes and riots and the violence that accompanies such things. This was their rallying song. Bellla Ciao translates as Goodbye Beautiful.
This version is from Marc Ribot‘s 2018 album Songs of Resistance 1942-2018 and features the unmistakable vocals of the great Tom Waits. It is a powerful version of a powerful song that still stands as symbol of resistance to authoritarianism to this day.
Let’s hope we don’t have to adopt this song as our own. Be aware and prepare.
“The Durable Will”- Currently at the Principle Gallery, Alexandria
The Anvil
Stand like a beaten anvil, when thy dream Is laid upon thee, golden from the fire. Flinch not, though heavily through that furnace-gleam The black forge-hammers fall on thy desire.
Demoniac giants round thee seem to loom. ‘Tis but the world-smiths heaving to and fro. Stand like a beaten anvil. Take the doom Their ponderous weapons deal thee, blow on blow.
Needful to truth as dew-fall to the flower Is this wild wrath and this implacable scorn. For every pang, new beauty, and new power, Burning blood-red shall on thy heart be born. Stand like a beaten anvil. Let earth’s wrong Beat on that iron and ring back in song.
–Alfred Noyes
This sounds about right. There are days when I certainly feel like an anvil that’s being hammered on. I
have a feeling there are many more of those days ahead.
Let’s hope we can forge something brighter and better.
“Magistrum”- You Could Win This Painting at Saturday’s Virtual Gallery Talk!
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“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King
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At a size of about 11″ by 15″ on paper and under glass, this painting is the second of the paintings that will be awarded as part of a free drawing at the end of my Virtual Gallery Talk this Saturday, August 22. It is titled Magistrum which is the Latin word for teacher or master.
It’s fitting that the snip I am using to start this post is from The Once and Future King from T.H. White. Reading was a big part of my childhood, a connection to the wider world and the key to unlocking the secrets of it. Books were the teacher, the master, I never had in any one person and I remember it well when I first came across this book. The story of the education of the young King Arthur by Merlin, it was delightful tale that really excited my imagination and, with its emphasis on learning and observing, reinforced my own quest to learn.
Merlin is correct, learning is the best thing for being sad. It changes the mind, building new structures upon it that make the whole thing so much stronger. In these days where, as Merlin points out, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, it is indeed a good thing to not wallow in sadness. Best to learn something new, expand that mind and see the world with wiser eyes.
That’s kind of what I see in this painting. The Red Tree here is the teacher urging its students to come out into the light, emerge from their state of blueness.
So, if you feel blue these days, open your mind and try to learn something unknown to you. Read something new. Look at things closer. Imagine the world through the eyes of others.
It’ll do you a world of good. That I can say with certainty.
Now the Virtual Gallery Talk from the West End Gallery takes place this Saturday, August 22, from 1-2 PM EST. Tomorrow, we will be posting the information on how to preregister for the Talk with Zoom. You do not have to have a Zoom account but you will need to register to participate and view. Though the Talk will be open to all, the drawing for the two paintings will be limited to the first 100 registrants. The chosen winners will have to be present (online!) at the Gallery Talk to claim their prize.
So make sure you get your name in when we roll out the info tomorrow. Good luck!
Redtree Times 